The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S console generation has catapulted the AAA blockbuster game budget from north of $100 million to north of $300 million in some cases. While many are worried about these dynamics hollowing out gaming’s AA middle tier, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak recently suggested there are ways to keep costs more under control for studios with the discipline to do so.
He continued, “When it comes to building something quality and sustainable, I think we have proven that our approach, and concept, with our engine, and with the way our talent works, that not only do we deliver AAA single-player games, but we build a community.”
Abrak pointed to the Hitman trilogy, which despite being a set of single-player games, continued to evolve and change until ultimately they were recompiled into a single edition called World of Assassination, complete with a game-changing new roguelike mode. IO Interactive, in other words, is in it for the long haul with each of its projects. It’s also conscientious of costs, despite 007 First Light‘s bigger price tag.
The executive gestured at the prices of the studio’s previous games in a separate interview with The Game Business a year ago. “Without being too precise: Hitman ’16, let’s say that if that was $100 million, Hitman 2 was maybe $60 million. Hitman 3 was $20 million,” he said at the time. One way of bringing costs down was abandoning “wasteful” development spending, like creating brand-new toilet assets for each new game.
“With our engine and efficiency….it is a very expensive project for us. It’s our most expensive,” he told The Game Business this week. “And I’m not going to talk about exact numbers now. But I’m looking forward to talking about it, because these games can be done for half of what you hear about out there.”
That suggests 007 First Light‘s cost before marketing could be over $100 million but still well short of the $200 million territory many of its competitors have crept into. That mindset also puts IO Interactive in the company of studios like Saber Interactive, which reportedly made the AAA-quality Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 for a fraction of modern AAA budgets (in part thanks to much cheaper labor in Eastern Europe).
“It’s about bang for the buck,” said Abrak. “It’s about who is your team? It’s about what are you producing? What is your basis? And it’s not about, if you haven’t recouped in the first three months, you are doomed, or it’s over. Or if you did [recoup], then it’s onto the next one. That’s not how we think. We really think of this as a journey. It doesn’t matter if it’s multiplayer or single player.”
